In Lord's Cemetery, near the
roadside, are two undressed field stones, slightly projecting above the
road, crowned with the gathered moss of more than half a century. They
mark the grave of Black Sara, who was born about the year 1720, near the
banks of the Newichawanah River.

Sara's stone lies in the cemetary on the south side of
Rt. 236 as one enters Berwick from the East, from South Berwick.

When she was four years old she
was purchased by Capt. Samuel Lord, the price being paid, a pair of 6 foot
oxen.

She married in early life the
servant of a neighboring farmer and one child was born of the union which
was christened in 1742 at the South Parish by Jeremiah Wise as Amy, the
daughter of Sara, Capt. Lord's servant. Her husband was accidentally drowned
in the Piscataqua River soon after the birth of the child and six months
later the child died from a prevailing epidemic. After the death of the
child, she was allowed to live with Mr. Lord's son, who had recently married
and settled on a grant of land in Berwick on the Salmon Fall's River at
Great Falls, where he was engaged in erecting mills for the manufacturing
of lumber and for grinding corn.

Sara is buried next to her husband, Caesar.

Sara was an important acquisition
to the new settlement, for she was strong and energetic, of great endurance,
had common sense and a kind and sympathetic heart, and she was versed in
all the home remedies for the sick and watched at their bedside with patience
and sympathy.

On Sunday she became a self-constituted
tithing man to prevent the children from desecrating the Sabbath. John
Sullivan was her master's nearest neighbor, she being twenty-four years
of age when his oldest child was born, and frequently visited their humble
dwelling and cared for the children while that energetic Irish woman drove
the oxen to plough and otherwise assisted the energetic husband in cultivating
the farm. For many years she fondled in her sable arms those children,
who, in her life time became illustrious in the Commonwealth.

THE OLD MILL

When the male members of the
family were engaged in river driving or with the care of their farms, Sara
had the care of the mill. There was not sufficient custom to keep her continually
employed so she attended to the usual household duties, keeping constant
watch for the next customer. The corn was usually brought to the mill on
horseback, and if by a woman or child Sara would throw the sack of meal
upon the horse's back with the ease of Hercules.

The location of the mill was
wild and picturesque. It was no weak force in nature that ploughed the
channel thro' the river and scattered huge blocks of slate along the shore.
The waters were not then as now, tamed in capacious reservoirs and daily
parceled out and harnessed to a ponderous mechanism. They leaped with wild
freedom from their crystal beds, gurgling thro' the rocky flumes and mossy
gorges, and whirling in deep circling eddies, and tumbled down craggy steeps
and went dashing and foaming on their hurried way to the sea. The lumber
on the sloping banks to the water's edge above the mill had been cleared
away and the wild rose and elder flower had rushed in and heavily perfumed
the pure air about the mill below. Near the high bluffs were groves of
ash, walnut and sassafrass, while up the valley as far as the eye could
see was the unbroken primeval forest of hemlock and pine, where yards of
the moose had not been disturbed, or the range of the deer molested.

THE OLD PARISH

Sara had been an ardent and consistent
member of the South Parish for fourteen years when the North Parish church
was dedicated at Blackberry Hill in 1755. Her master was a constituent
member of the new church; she transferred her love and allegiance to the
North Parish church and entered upon the faithful duty her new alliance
imposed.

The new house had free seats
for the colored servants kept by a large number of the parishioners, as
was the custom at that time. The "nigger seats" as they were called were
not constructed on account of race prejudices in the sense that excludes
from our hotels and public resorts many of our intelligent and respectable
fellow citizens to-day. This church had no negro seats at the Lord's table,
nor had individual communion cups been suggested.

At the ordination of John Morse,
its first Pastor, soon after the dedication the people came from neighboring
towns and filled the church. After the opening prayer by Parson Main, a
hymn was sung. Sara took an active part in the vocal exercises with her
associates in the negro seats and her strong clear voice blending with
the lighter but no less melodious voices of Candis, Marie and Phyllis,
thrilled the congregation.

THE REVOLUTION

The people of Berwick were well
informed in regard to the impending crisis for American Independence, They
were in constant communication with the committee of safety at Boston;
public meetings were frequently held. Patriotic resolutions adopted frequently
and the situation discussed at every fireside. Sara had lived in troublesome
times. When we had been engaged in the colonial war, she had assisted with
her wheel in knitting and fitting out the one hundred fifty men who had
enlisted in Capt. Moses Burter's company which went to join Pepperell's
expedition to Louisburg, she had bidden adieu to friends who joined the
expedition to Quebec who had never returned and listened with attentive
ears to personal rehearsals of the survivors of returned old captives carried
away by the Indians in 1690. She trembled for the fate of the boys of the
household who had arrived at the enlisting age -- she loved them as her
own and they loved her as their mother. She was present at their birth;
tenderly cared for them in infancy, sat by their cradle with tender solicitude
while they conquered the various maladies incident to childhood.

When it was learned that John,
Daniel and Ebenezer Sullivan had gone to the front and William, Jonathan
and David Knox, Richard Wentworth and Daniel Hooper intended to enlist
it was determined in the council of the household that Nathan and Samuel
Lord should go to the war. Sara had for some time anticipated this event
and applied herself to the wheel and loom and furnished them with serviceable
suits of homespun. They started on a bright morning in July after the battle
of Bunker Hill in June. While the boys were taking leave of the family,
Sara had gone up the road and seated herself on the great rock; when they
came along she joined them on their way. The new mown hay in the field
perfumed the air and bright red cherries hung in clusters on the trees
by the road; red roses and peonies were blooming in the garden of the farm
house. They stopped at the school house where their school days had been
spent, looked into the window to get a view of Master Sullivan's chair
and the rude benches where they sat so many days and passed over Worster's
River to the top of Hodsdon's Hill. Sara with loving words, bade them be
good boys, invoked God's blessing and her own upon them and said good-bye
with tearful eyes and watched them until they passed over Goodwin's Hill
out of sight.

This "great rock" stands on the south side of Rt. 236,
east of Berwick.

THE FUNERAL

'Twas a beautiful October night.
The harvest moon was round and clear above the summit of Mt. Agamenticus
and blended its light with the fading twilight that gilded the Strafford
hills.

A few neighbors had gathered
at the homestead to finish husking the corn. Sara had remained up until
late to put in order the room where the work had been done. The family
arose unusually late the next morning, there was no fire kindled on the
hearth, no preparations for the morning meal. They went to Sara's room.
There had been no struggle; everything was peaceful, calm and still. Sara
was dead. The messenger in the stilly night had released the white soul
from its dark casket. Her hymn book lay upon the frame of her loom and
the hymn "See the leaves around us falling, Dry and Withered to the Ground,"
was marked by a sered leaf. The women of the neighborhood quickly gathered
at the homestead and kindly offered aid and sympathy. Mrs. Sullivan boisterously
extolled her virtues and said, "the like of her will never be seen again."
Mr. Hansen came across the string piece from Somersworth with tools to
make the coffin from the seasoned boards which stood behind the chimney
which, when completed, was varnished with a coat of Spanish brown. Parson
Merriam, who had been her beloved pastor for twenty-five years was notified.

Mt. Agamenticus seen from Dover, NH.

Thursday was the funeral day.
It dawned bright and warm. The gaudy annuals that Sara had planted about
the door had been withered by the early frost, their stems bent to the
ground. The apple tree she had brought from Old Fields and planted at the
end of the house had cast its leaves and they rustled about the doorway.
Nearly every colored person and most of the members of the parish came
to the funeral, the men on horseback with the women on pillions.

Mr. Merriam read, "Blessed are
the dead who die in the Lord," commented on her useful life, Christian
graces and peaceful end, and the crown she would receive at the resurrection.

Deacon Hodsdon, with his long
grey queue hanging down his back deaconed the hymn "Why do we mourn departing
friends?" This was sung by both black and white with moistened eyes.

The black bier was placed at
the door and when all had taken leave and said their farewells, the coffin
was placed upon it. Four stalwart young men placed it upon their shoulders
and the procession went up the winding road under the golden elms. The
first flowers and golden rod were leaning on the great rock as if they
were wearied of their length of days and would soon fall and decay; the
maples near the pasture bars were clothed in scarlet and gold and garnet
plumed sumacs stood around the grave like sentinels. The colored people
remained until the grave was covered and until the undressed stones were
set which mark the grave to-day.

When Sara left her early home
to come to the mill, she was allowed to take all her worldly goods, which
consisted of her wheel and loom, two pewter dishes, and a brass kettle.
These pewter dishes were in constant use in her life and after her death
were heirlooms in the family, but when they built the great wooden factory
opposite the mill and filled it with things as if in operation by the waters
that turned the mill Sara had tended, there was no more use for Sara's
wheel and loom and they were allowed to decay.

The pewter dishes were kept upon
the dresser, but when a stove took the place of the old fireplace, some
careless person placed the dishes on it and they went into liquidation,
but the brass kettle still remains and [is] cherished as a memento of her
traditional virtues. It is in the possession of a descendant of her master
and will doubtless remain bright for generations to come.

January 22, 1897

Worster's RiverPhoto by Wendy Pirsig

Note

This text is made available courtesy of the Old Berwick
Historical Society. It was printed by the Berwick Historical Society in
1985, prepared by Marguerite Fall, with photographs by John Philbrick.
The photos accompanying this text are by Terry Heller, taken in June 2003,
under the guidance of Wendy Pirsig and Norma Keim of the Old Berwick Historical
Society. An apparent error in the text has been corrected and the
change indicated with brackets. On the gravestone mentioned in the text,
the name is spelled "Sarah."